Jane Hamsher of FDL owes me a beer because Massa was not the problem
Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake appeared on Democracy Now and discussed the lack of support for the Kucinich Amendment and the Weiner Amendment. Read the whole account (the back story on the title is at the end of this post). It goes with out saying to those involved that Jane Hamsher at FDL did a spectacular job keeping the on-line community informed of the House Health Care debate and whipping members of the House for a strong public option. Bowers at openleft has a similar effort with the Senate. I mention this because not everyone was involved, so, sincere compliments to these two people and all who supported their efforts.
The summary of Jane’s account? In essence we passed a bad bill, it may be a stepping stone to something better in the future and, damn, we have a lot of work to do.
In my opinion, those who view this bill as a stepping stone to something better, underestimate the amount of work to do to get that “something better.” What are your kids doing over the next 10-20 years?
Here is the section from her account.
It was hard to be happy about the passage of the health care bill on Saturday given the incredible blow to women’s rights that it represents. With the exception of Kucinich and Massa, all of the House progressives abandoned their July 30 pledge to vote against any bill that didn’t have a public option with rates tied to Medicare. Of course, those on the Energy & Commerce Committee abandoned it the next day, led by Jan Schakowsky, which is why we summarily mocked them at the time. They were never going to take a stand against the Blue Dogs on Medicare reimbursement rates. They traded it away for a floor vote on single payer, which the Speaker subsequently reneged on.
…
We began whipping in support of the public option on June 23. With a President who campaigned on having a public option and majority in the House and Senate who expressed public support, it allowed us to spend the intervening months closing the gap between rhetoric and action, and put pressure on those whose actions fell short of their promises. When H.R. 676 co-sponsors like Charles Rangel, Eddie Bernice Johnson, David Scott and Joe Baca began dropping their support and threatening to vote against any single payer amendments, on the other hand, there was no price paid.
A public option was never anything more than a stepping stone to Medicare for all, a foothold in what would have otherwise been nothing more than a huge transfer of wealth to the insurance industry (which is still by-and-large is). But it’s going to take a lot more political organizing on the inside before any real headway can be made on that front, and we’re working on that now. The fact that even 14 of the 89 cosponsors won’t exercise the power they have and stand together to force even a symbolic vote shows how much work has to be done.
The back story on the title: At Netroots Nation I got into a long and lengthy debate as part of those clouds of people surrounding blog A lister Jane Hamsher of FDL whether or not Eric Massa was the weak link in the the Progressive Block. Basically, she said he was going to cave and abandon the Progressive block. We disagreed and had this conversation twice at two different venues. The story was the same. I recall and quipped at the time that Eric would stand firm and I’ll bet you a beer. Well, guess what? - Massa was one of two members of the progressive caucus who stood his ground. (note: the title was an attempt at “cute” and based on conversations with Jane in August. A lot has happened since then)
So I say again - Massa isn’t the problem.
Folks - we have a lot of work ahead of us.
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